


Thaw

by venndaai



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Force Bond (Star Wars), Hypothermia, M/M, Pretending to Betray Someone to Save them, Rescue, Soulbonding is the only way for A to save severely injured B's life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24188503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: “I was correct,” Scourge said. “I feel it. Your father’s soul lives on, inside this creature. In order for your father to truly be destroyed, and this galaxy saved from him, this Jedi must die.”
Relationships: Male Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Lord Scourge
Comments: 7
Kudos: 30
Collections: Hurt Comfort Exchange 2020





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wednesday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wednesday/gifts).



“I don’t trust easily,” Arcann had said. “You will have to prove yourself to me.”

“Anything,” Scourge had said, still kneeling, and knew Arcann could see how much he meant it. 

Scourge had never thought he would miss the centuries of servitude underneath his Emperor. Never thought he'd miss kneeling to listen to his master’s self-satisfied gloating, stalking the tediously familiar corridors of the Sith Sanctum or chasing down those who had incurred his master’s wrath as they fled the the edges of the galaxy. He'd certainly never imagined one day he'd wish he was lying sleeplessly on a luxurious bed, or killing and killing as the world around him grew colder and more distant and more meaningless. He had never imagined he’d look back on those years with nostalgia.

Serving Arcann was worse. But at least it took far less time to get what he wanted from him.  The boy was young, and nowhere near as paranoid yet as his father had been. He was also obsessed with his most prized prisoner, and Scourge barely had to lead him in the correct direction at all.

Release from carbonite freezing was not a pleasant process. Scourge watched the prisoner fall from the block down to the metal grill floor, too weak to soften the impact with hands or knees. He was frosted with a coating of white that flaked and shed as he shook and coughed on the ground. 

“I was correct,” Scourge said. “I feel it. Your father’s soul lives on, inside this creature. In order for your father to truly be destroyed, and this galaxy saved from him, this Jedi must die.”

The arrangement of this tableau brought back memories. The Jedi, kneeling, eyes blank, will broken, and Scourge looking down at his master’s handiwork and saying, “Good.” It was difficult to remember, now, how he had felt then. So much of himself had still been distant, hidden. He had felt hope, sparking painfully into a darkened void inside of him. He had felt a terrible conviction that he had found something unquantifiably precious, that he needed to protect at all costs. 

It was different now. The Jedi was weak, confused, but his will was his own, and in those eyes was the pain and anger of betrayal. Scourge had seen that look before, on many faces. He had killed many Sith who did not expect their Emperor’s wrath, who had thought themselves deserving of a better reward. He had never felt very much, slaughtering them. 

It was different, now. 

“I don’t feel him,” Arcann said, eye narrowed. “But he has always had a talent for shielding himself from me. Very well.” He looked at the Jedi, and at Scourge, and then he took a slow step back. “You do it,” he said. “Prove yourself.”

He was very afraid of his father, Scourge saw, and felt a small thrill of victory. The Jedi had never been afraid of Vitiate, despite everything. The Jedi was superior to this brat child. 

“Very well,” Scourge said, pulling his lightsaber from his belt, feeling it ignite in his hand. The Jedi’s body was still convulsing, but his eyes weren’t leaving Scourge’s face. 

The Force was not quite as strong here as it had been on Dromund Kaas, and the building was far newer and better constructed than the Dark Temple, so it took more effort than Scourge would have liked for him to bring down part of the ceiling with one swift application of power. He felt Arcann leap backwards as metal girders and tubing came crashing down between them, but Scourge was focused on replacing his saber and kneeling to examine the Jedi. 

“Hah,” the Jedi breathed quietly.

“I learned that move from you,” Scourge said. “Can you run?” 

The Jedi grunted.

He’d brought a hypospray. Scourge found himself fumbling, retrieving it and bringing it up to the Jedi’s neck. Fortunately the device was easy enough to operate even with hands that were shaking. But he sensed very quickly that the injection wasn’t enough. The Jedi was still shivering, his gasping breaths growing shallower and more irregular. Scourge bent, and lifted the man fully into his arms. He was light enough for Scourge to carry him easily. 

“Hold on,” Scourge said, and found himself adding, “Please.”

The droid had commandeered a shuttle, just as it had promised. Scourge was reluctantly forced to upwardly adjust his estimation of its usefulness. On the other hand, it was quite a small craft, with barely enough room for two people and a droid inside of it. Scourge considered kicking the droid out, but the Jedi might be upset and distracted by that later, and also, it was helpful to have some assistance flying the damn thing. The Force could compensate a great deal for unfamiliarity with technology, but it was always a good idea to maximize use of your resources.

The shuttle rocked and tilted wildly as metal screamed around them. A lucky shot, perhaps guided by a Force-sensitive Knight of Zakuul, had hit one of the wings. Scourge cursed inventively in a long dead tongue. The Jedi, slumped and quiet and shivering, did not appear to react. 

“I can get us away from our pursuers,” Scourge said. “I will hold this craft together with my will if I need to,” he added grimly. “But you should be prepared for a crash landing.”

There was no response. 

The landing itself was mercifully brief. Scourge controlled the angle of descent as best he could, aiming for what looked like something of a gap between the trees, and then wedged himself firmly between the walls of the cockpit, shielding the Jedi in his arms as much as possible, and reached out with the Force. The next two minutes were exciting and unpleasant, but once the world had settled, Scourge found he was still breathing, and so was the Jedi, though he appeared only half conscious. The shuttle airlock was impassable. Scourge broke through the plexiglass of the cockpit and lifted the Jedi out with the Force, maneuvering him gently around the jagged shards of glass. Scourge’s own muscles were shaking by the time he let the Jedi sink into his arms again. He was exhausted, and bruised, and his powers were suffering for it. 

“Any suggestions for our next move?” he asked, and received no response. 

There was a furious beeping from inside the shattered remains of the shuttle, and Scourge watched the Jedi’s small droid lever itself out of the wreck, not sure whether he was pleased or annoyed to see it had survived. “Do you have any suggestions?” he asked sarcastically.

It beeped at him. _-Scans = large inorganic structure to west-_ it told him. _-High probability structure = very old crashed ship. T7 + Jedi = can fix anything-_

“That’s certainly an optimistic attitude,” Scourge muttered, but he oriented himself to the west before plunging into the jungle. At the very least, a large wreck might provide shelter from the cold and the rain that was beginning to patter down through the canopy. 

He didn’t know how long he walked through the jungle, carrying the Jedi in his arms. He counted each wheezing breath, but each time the Jedi coughed he lost count, distracted by the pain in the sound, in the ripples in the Force. There was a time when pain was only background noise to him. 

He reached the wreck before his body stopped walking, so that was good. 

It was raining hard by that time. Scourge bent nearly double to duck in through a hole in the side of the wrecked ship, maneuvering carefully to avoid scraping his burden against the jagged edges of metal. He took a few more steps inside, until the metal beneath his feet looked dry, and then his knees folded up, and the metal floor was closer than it had been. He sat back, struggling to catch his breath, and looked down at the body in his arms. When he brushed the back of his knuckles against the Jedi’s face, the skin was wet with rain, and almost as cold as though fresh from carbonite. The closed eyelids didn’t flutter.

There was a beeping from behind him. “Make yourself useful,” Scourge snapped. “Find the command center of this thing.” 

_Don’t let it end like this,_ Scourge thought, and wasn’t sure who he was speaking to. 

In three hundred years, Scourge had never bothered to train as a healer, never learned the art from the sorcerers of the Sith, the dark masters of transferring life force from one being to another. But he was very familiar with a different technique. The one by which his own life had been bound to that of the Immortal Emperor’s. 

He did not know if it would even work, with a Jedi. He did know the Jedi would be angry with him for even attempting it.

That would be perfectly acceptable, if only the Jedi was alive to be angry. 

He picked up the cold hands, tried to massage warmth back into them. He was no good at this- no good at anything that involved helping or healing, no good at anything but destruction. But the Force was there, when he reached out to it. 

“Blood,” he murmured. The knife at his belt sufficed to slice open his arm, and he dripped blood into a circle around them. The Jedi barely whimpered when the knife cut into his skin. He didn’t stir from Scourge’s hold as Scourge manipulated his arm to splatter blood in approximately the correct locations. The ritual wasn’t about precision, Scourge knew, as much as intent. He chanted, in a language few still knew, and felt the air around them turn cold. The blood on the ground vaporized into dust that rose to hang in the air like a curtain around them. 

The Jedi exhaled, a single warm breath against Scourge’s neck, and then was still, his chest unmoving under Scourge’s arm.

“No, you don’t,” Scourge said, and reached. The Jedi’s spirit was there, on the verge of dissipation into the Force. Scourge caught it in his net of blood and fear and desperation, and bound it to himself with chains of the pain that was cracking all through his centuries of icy distance. _Do not leave me._

_Scourge…?_

_Yes. I am here. You are not alone._

_You will never be alone_.

He was caught, then, by truly unexpected guilt. Somehow, without being aware of it, he had wanted this. Had longed for it. 

Cradled in his arms, the Jedi took a gasping breath. 

Scourge helped him up into a sitting position. The Jedi coughed and shivered, but Scourge could feel him in the Force, a flickering light growing stronger with every moment, gathering strength into himself, purging his body of the carbonite poisoning for good. 

Scourge realized his hands were still tightly grasping the Jedi’s shoulders. He let them drop, shifted back a little on the cold metal floor. 

“I am sorry,” he said quietly, forcing himself not to hide his gaze. 

“Don’t be,” the Jedi said. “Scourge. You came for me.” His face tilted up, his eyes wide and wondering. “Why? Why not kill me, and be rid of the Emperor?”

“First of all,” Scourge said, “I have no guarantee he would not simply transfer himself to me, like a parasite choosing a new host. He may truly be impossible to destroy at this point. But you are the one person we know to be able to overcome his domination.”

The Jedi frowned. “No, you’re forgetting… Kira…” He clutched at Scourge’s arm, and Scourge tried to ignore the flutter he felt at the Jedi’s touch. “Kira! Are she and the others all right?”

“I am afraid I do not know,” Scourge admitted. “The last time I saw Kira, she was insulting my intelligence for choosing to go directly to Zakuul. It would take a great deal to destroy that one, though. I am sure she has kept your other companions safe.” Surprising himself again; he didn't usually see much point in platitudes. But it did not feel like a falsehood. He himself had no bond to Kira Carsen, except insofar as they were both now connected to the Jedi, but he could not help but believe that were she to be snuffed out, he would somehow know it. 

The grip on his arm eased. The Jedi pulled his legs into the traditional Jedi meditation pose, and rested his elbows on his knees, and then let his head fall, propped up and hidden by his hands. “How long has it been?” he asked, voice slightly muffled. 

“Two years,” Scourge said. “I regret that I was so slow. It took time to win Arcann’s trust.” He hesitated. _I did things for him which… which you would find unforgivable?_ Why would he want to say that? Which would be worse, the Jedi’s disgust, or the knowledge that he was pathetic enough to crave someone else’s moral approval for his own actions? 

He wanted to say, _Even if I knew that striking you down would achieve every goal I have ever set for myself, and secure the future of the galaxy forever, even then I would not do it._

But there was no reason to burden the Jedi with his feelings. The bond would make keeping them to himself more difficult, but hardly impossible. He had centuries of experience partitioning his thoughts away in the presence of one he was bound to. 

“I’m glad you came,” the Jedi said. “I’m sorry I left you alone for so long. All of you.” 

_-T7 = forgives Jedi-_ the droid beeped. _-T7 = glad Jedi is back // T7 = missed best partner-_

The Jedi lifted his head and grinned. It was good to see his eyes bright. “I missed you too, little buddy.” He leaned forward to give the droid a pat. 

_I am not jealous of a_ droid _,_ Scourge told himself furiously.

Then the Jedi leaned back again, head hitting the metal bulkhead with a dull thump. “So,” he said. “How long do you think we have before those patrols of jerks in dumb armor find us? Time enough for a little shut eye?”

There probably wasn’t any time at all. They should begin repairs on this wreck immediately. But instead of pointing that out, Scourge shifted, settling down next to the Jedi, back against the bulkhead, shoulder pressing to shoulder. Through the new, tender connection between them, he could feel the Jedi’s deep exhaustion. It was more than just the still lingering trauma of the carbonite, he realized. The war itself had been grinding his Jedi down to dust- the war against Vitiate, and before that, the war against his empire. He was young, still, the Jedi Scourge had bound himself to, and he had not yet watched the galaxy pass through its cycles of death and life. 

Perhaps he would. Perhaps, with Vitiate’s soul within him, he would live to watch wars come and go, and watch the color and feeling drain from his world. 

Scourge would be with him until the end. Whatever form that end finally took.


End file.
